


to ashes

by alethiometry



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 09:35:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11780376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alethiometry/pseuds/alethiometry
Summary: He climbs back into bed and buries himself deeper into his thin, stiff sheets, trying not to breathe in too much of their mustiness, and he holds on tight. Like he's still back there, back then, and nothing went wrong and no one burned. Like he could dream her back to life, if only he tried hard enough.





	to ashes

You need to stop this, Dean says without actually saying the words. He doesn't have to anymore. Sam knows. Word-for-word, scripted now like a school play: Stop it. It's not your fault. You need to let her go.

Let me put it this way, Sammy. You trip on the sidewalk and skin your knee, you don't keep digging into it and picking at the scab and letting it fester. Right? You put a bandaid on it, let it heal over.

Dean doesn't say that, either, because it's a pretty shitty thing to say to your grieving baby brother, but Sam can tell he's thinking it. A lifetime of dealing with death, gruesome death, fucking paranormal, burn-alive-pinned-to-the-ceiling death—the callousness, the dissociation, it's all a coping mechanism. Sam gets it. Really, he does. The important thing is, Dean’s trying.

But also: fuck you, Dean.

Jess isn’t a crack in the sidewalk.

...wasn't.

(isn't?)

(wasn't.)

Sam first met Luis in freshman writing seminar, peer-editing papers. Great guy, Luis—the best, honestly—but a grammatical-syntactical nightmare. Couldn't match verb tenses to save his life. Like time-hopping, reading his essays, and don't tell anyone, because it's mean and it's unfair, but Sam never understood why it was so difficult for him to distinguish past and present.

How ironic.

Jess isn't an _is_ anymore. She _was_. She’s gone. She _was_ alive and now she _isn't_ and somehow the world still hasn’t found the good grace to stop turning and Sam’s thinking about grammar at four in the fucking morning in a motel room in Bumfuck, U.S.A. with puke-green sheets that probably haven't been washed in his lifetime (in Jess’ lifetime—a better analogy, more accurate, because it’s _finite_ , because she's _gone_ ) so that he won't have to think about—well, anything else.

Bang-up job he’s doing of it. Really. An admirable effort.

He's stopped puking, at least; he can force himself to eat meat again, so long as he doesn't think too hard about the smell. Still, he shuts himself in the bathroom and turns the faucet on all the way, just to have a little white noise.

Don't you know, Sam? California’s in a drought. Almost always is, really, but point is, you gotta be more careful with water. Can't just leave it running like that.

Only we're not in California anymore, are we?

Well, Jess still is.

And also isn't.

Sam splashes water on his face and half-expects to see blood trickling from his tear ducts when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

Bloody Mary, he whispers, lips barely moving, voice barely audible over the stream of water.

Bloody Mary.

Bloo—wait.

We killed her, too.

Dean’s got the T.V. on when Sam emerges, lounging ever-so-casually (incredibly awkwardly) with his gross green sheets bunched up around his waist, eyes glued to the infomercials on the screen as if they're the most fascinating thing in the world. As if he hasn't already memorized each inflection point and gaudy pop-up graphic after weeks of pretending to give a fuck about premium pasta cookers while side-eyeing Sam like the world’s least subtle mother hen.

He's trying, Sam reminds himself.

Sam wants to snatch the remote out of Dean’s slack grip and chuck it through the T.V. He wants to fling the entire damn thing off the motel balcony, and take the butt of his shotgun to whatever’s left intact, and set it all on fire. He wants to yell and scream and pummel Dean and grab him by the throat and squeeze until all the pity drains from his brother’s eyes. He wants to take a crowbar to Dean’s car, shatter each window, puncture each tire, skewer the hood with the straight end and stab deep, deep down into its engine and twist.

He wants to shrink into the folds of his bed—not this motel puke-bed, _his_ bed— _their_ bed, the one that burned—and shut his eyes and sleep and sleep and sleep and he wants Dean to understand and he wants—

And that's the cruelest part, isn't it? He knows exactly what he wants, and he can't have it, and it's four A.M. and he's thirteen hundred miles away and seventy-eight days too late and Jess is gone.

Forever.

The tears don't come anymore, haven't come since the thing in the mirror cried blood out of his eyes. He wants those back, too. Somehow it was easier when he could still cry.

He climbs back into bed and buries himself deeper into his thin, stiff sheets, trying not to breathe in too much of their mustiness, and he holds on tight. Like he's still back there, back then, and nothing went wrong and no one burned. Like he could dream her back to life, if only he tried hard enough.

He walks through their apartment, still and dusk-silent, hears the shower running as he nears their bedroom, smells the fresh-baked cookies still wafting in from the kitchen, swallows around his heart pounding in his throat. Hoping, hoping.

He looks up.

(no)

He sees her.

(no, please, _please_ —)

And she burns.


End file.
